Most of the January snow is gone, melted by rain late last week and temps above freezing most of the time since then. More above-freezing temps are forecast for the forecastable future, or another week or so. An odd thing for winter stasis, which is usually a run of days consistently below freezing, but I’m not complaining — and will be glad to be rid of January, as usual.
Another press release that isn’t in my wheelhouse came today, not even within shouting distance of my wheelhouse, unless you count the very occasional times I’ve written about stadium development. Namely, it’s about sports. Rarefied sports: The Super Bowl.
I extracted the following table from it, which reports info from a company that tracks secondary sports ticket sales. These are average ticket prices (so far) for the upcoming Super Bowl and the final averages five games before it.
2024 (49ers vs. Chiefs): $10,408
2023 (Eagles vs. Chiefs): $7,672
2022 (Rams vs. Bengals): $8,347
2021 (Bucs vs. Chiefs): $7,738
2020 (49ers vs. Chiefs): $6,705
2019 (Rams vs. Patriots): $5,629
Italics added, though I could have added them to each and every price listed, to denote how nuts I believe the figures are. Of course, ten grand isn’t what it used to be – can’t even get half of a new car for that, nor (maybe) a decent cruise to Antarctica.
Still, it’s no small sum to devote to parking yourself at football game that only occasionally lives up to its hype. At least, that’s what I hear. Somehow over the years I’ve forgotten to watch the game on TV. That might happen again if I’m not careful.
Even before you enter the grounds of Churchill Downs, you encounter bronze horses. Both are winners of the Kentucky Derby. One is Aristides, at the Paddock gate, who came in first in the first Derby in 1875 – long before it was a Run for the Roses,® or the first race of the Triple Crown,® or the Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports,® or the object of 21st-century renovations.
The Derby was about drinking and gambling from day one, I believe, and not in moderation, yet genteel enough (at least in the stands) for the monied elite — traditions that grand event upholds to the present, all the other trappings notwithstanding. What better for a spring day in Kentucky?
The other horse, and statue, is more recent: Barbaro.
I suspected right away that some physical remains of Barbaro were there as well, and yes, his ashes are, I read later. I’ve pretty much ignored thoroughbred horseracing most of my life, and even my limited interest in the ’80s was because I enjoyed going to the Derby in person. So I wondered about Barbaro. I must have heard the news story in the 2000s, but it had evaporated, gone amid the backdrop of a household with little kids.
Still, I figured, as a Derby winner his birth and death years (2003 to 2007) pretty much got to the heart of Barbaro’s career – a shooting star among race horses, brilliance to ashes. Later I looked up the details, including in a succinct, eulogizing video, and that’s about the size of it.
A thoughtful comment from the video’s comment section: Not making an anti-racing statement but, if you feel bad for Barbaro, take a moment to think about all of the other horses that broke down and died, on/off the track, too. Barbaro got kind letters, flowers, signs and even gift baskets with horse feed sent to his veterinarian centre, because he was a champion. Just seems sad that we only do that for the gifted athletes of the sport, even though every one of those incredible animals gave it their all for our entertainment.
@catarena8031
Near Barbaro is the entrance to the Kentucky Derby Museum, and near the admission desk is a countdown clock.
(As it appeared on December 28.)
While we were still in the parking lot, headed for the entrance, we passed by a young couple leaving. Out of the blue the man said to us, “Take the Barn and Backside Tour. It costs more, but it’s worth it.”
“Really?” I said, in a friendly tone. They both nodded their agreement.
“You get to see a lot more,” he said, gesturing with his hands a bit, sort of making parentheses around his sizable beard. “Some of the stables and other places behind the track.”
We agreed that that sounded good and parted ways. I asked about it at the desk. Sorry, sold out. So we got the basic tour and museum admission, a spot over $20 per person. The museum, well organized and informative but not overtaxed with dense reading, was worth a look, for a small glimpse into a whole other world.
Also, you get to see a facsimile of Mage, last year’s winner.
And the trophy War Admiral received in 1937 for winning the Derby.
Along with a good many other items. Other displays included Triple Crown winners – each one had a kiosk – how thoroughbreds are raised, the building of the track and the early races, video screens to call up and watch previous televised races (I watched ’86; I only heard it when there), images of the flamboyant hats and dresses worn by female racegoers, and the part African-Americans have played in the event, especially as jockeys: a good many in the early years, including Oliver Lewis; nil as Jim Crow solidified; some since the legal end of segregation.
The tour started with a short presentation on a 360-degree screen well above eye level: part movie, part still images with a sound track, and about what the horses and the jockeys and all the many other support staff do to put on the Derby. Quick-moving, it idealized the event somewhat, but who would expect otherwise?
The cinematography was exceptional sometimes, giving me the sense that whatever else the racehorses are, they’re massive, powerful beasts of tremendous energy. And what manor of men would perch themselves atop these beasts at their top speeds? Besides relatively small men and a few women, that is. I have a new-found respect for jockeys.
Also, it got me to thinking, a little along the lines of the comment above. Sure, it’s fine to know about the winners down the years, and I’ll go along with the notion that, say, Secretariat was a very great racer indeed. But what about the also-rans? Not just also-rans, but last rans?
Back when Aristides took the prize to the crowd’s acclaim, a horse named Gold Mine proved not to be one, coming in 15th and last. When Sir Barton won on his way to the first Triple Crown in 1919, Vindex was 12th and last.
Vindex? After the Roman who rebelled, unsuccessfully, against Nero? Could be. I can imagine the owner reading about the bold Vindex in the works of I forget which Roman historian. It would have been a thing for a horse-owning Kentucky gentleman to do in his youth in late 19th century, possibly even in the original Latin.
One more. When Secretariat won the day in 1973, before a national audience (including a 12-year-old me), Warbucks was 13th and last.
From the museum, the tour group moved to under the grandstands, guided by a competent employee of the track. She told us a capsule history of the race and the Downs.
Out to the lowest level of the grandstand. It’s a good view, I have to say.
The guide provided more history and some physical information about the track itself, and about the enormous stable complex on the other side of the track, way off in the distance, which sounded big enough to have its own zip code. (It doesn’t seem to.)
Then we headed back to the museum for a few more minutes, and that was that. Chintzy, Churchill Downs. That was more like a $12 museum + tour package. Not even a few minutes up in the grandstands? Did some whiz in the organization, or maybe a computer program, determine that eliminating the small but measurable cost in elevator maintenance and maybe slightly higher insurance premiums was worth shorting the patrons in their experience? Just speculation.
All I know is that the view from the grandstands should have been part of it. One visit to the Derby, I had access to the grandstands, and wandered around quite a while. You really get caught up in the thing looking down on the lively, colorful crowds and the active racetrack. Even on an empty winter day, I think you’d feel an echo of those festive times.
Remarkably, the election seems to have been anticlimactic. So far, anyway. Probably the best outcome to be hoped for, two sumo wrestlers huffing noisily to a draw. I did my little part, voting about two hours before the polls closed, because it had been a busy day at work, and every time I considered voting early during the last few weeks, I thought, nah.
Even more remarkably, we had lunch on the deck today. This evening at about 8, I sat out there in a light jacket under the waning moon and Jupiter high in the sky, and comfortably drank tea and ate a banana-flavored Choco Pie.
For anyone who’s interested, the International Olympic Committee created a report called “Over 125 years of Olympic venues: post-Games Use.” I can’t speak to the organization’s exact motives in producing such a document, but it seems to be a way to assert that most host cities weren’t stuck with too many white elephants after the Games.
Maybe so. The report notes that of the permanent venues used in both Summer and Winter Games from 1896 to 2018 — there were 817 all together — 85 percent are still in use. Many of those, if not most, already existed when the Games came to town, however.
Those 15 percent of unused venues are what tend to get attention. Or rather, a fraction of them.
“Of the 15 per cent of permanent venues not in use (124 venues), the majority (88 venues) were unbuilt or demolished for a variety of reasons,” the report says, using that charming British style for spelling out % and unbuilt as a verb.
“Some had reached the end of their life, some were destroyed during war periods or in accidents, while others were replaced by new urban development projects or were removed for lack of a business model. The remaining venues not in use are closed or abandoned (36 venues).”
Those last ones would be fodder for urban explorers and editorialists who want to discuss the deleterious impact of the Games on urban spaces. Tellingly, the report notes that Los Angeles isn’t going to build any new venues for ’28.
“The ‘radical reuse’ concept also applies to the training facilities and the Athletes’ Village,” it says.
Guess the IOC is going to have to live with the fact that cities are now hesitant to build spiffy new facilities that mostly benefit the IOC.
Here are photos of some of those abandoned sites. The ones that surprise me are the abandoned swimming pool and amphitheater from the ’36 Games. Sure, those were the Nazi Olympics, but the main stadium has been maintained by a more benevolent German government, why not the pool?
I took a look at that stadium — Olympiastadion — during a walkabout in West Berlin in 1983. That’s only one of two former Olympic sites that I can remember visiting. The other was a facility for the 1976 Montreal Games, the Centre Aquatique, where we went swimming in 2002.
I had these places in mind when I strolled through Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta. Its origins are on display.
The 21-acre park actually isn’t listed in the IOC report, because no sporting activity took place there. Rather, it was intended to be a gathering spot for visitors and spectators, and then a city park once the Games were over, and so it is. A pleasant place to wander on a warm weekend morning.
The park includes green space.
Water features and plazas.
Some structures left over from ’96.
Sculpture from that same year.
“Tribute” by Greek artist Peter Calaboyias, depicting (right to left) an ancient Olympic athlete, a participant in the first modern Games in Athens in 1896, and an Atlanta Games participant.
On Monday, which was like a Sunday in terms of work schedules, we took a walk at the Palatine Prairie Nature Preserve in Palatine, a not-too-far-away suburb.
We’ve been here before, I told Yuriko.
We have?
I couldn’t remember exactly when (till I looked it up), but I knew that we had — and we’d seen guys playing Frisbee golf there. Besides a walking trail, the preserve includes a disc golf course. It still does.
Something I noticed this time that I never did before: the players were all carrying bags with more than one disc inside. Maybe a half dozen discs. Like a golfer has different clubs, a — disc-er? — has different discs for different shots? Must be.
We didn’t go to toss discs, but just to walk.
And read a bit.
Gold is a prime color of late summer.
This little memorial, under a tree, looked fairly new.
This Tony Esposito? Probably so, considering his long tenure with the Chicago Blackhawks.
Shucks, I forgot to miss the Super Bowl on purpose. I just forgot about it, period. Outside at dusk on Sunday I caught a nice view of the near-full moon over bare trees, though.
Pleasant to see, not so pleasant to stand around outside to see it. But the days are getting longer, the very first harbinger of spring. Otherwise, no hint of that season yet. We’re in winter stasis.
Am I right in thinking that this year’s Super Bowl is later than usual? I couldn’t let a question like that go unanswered, not when the uber-almanac that is the Internet is available.
This year is in fact the latest ever, and a major jump further into the new year from last year’s February 7. In fact, any game in February is historically late. Back in the early days of the contest, mid-January was more likely, and January was the norm for the 20th-century games. The earliest the Super Bowl has ever been was January 9, 1977.
According to this handy table from ESPN, the first February Super Bowl was only in 2002, when it was on the 3rd.
That season the league’s schedule was pushed back a week by the September 11, 2001 attacks. Wiki puts it this way: “Rescheduling Super Bowl XXXVI from January 27 to February 3 [2002] proved extraordinarily difficult. In addition to rescheduling the game itself, all related events and activities had to be accommodated.
“This marked the first time in NFL history that the Super Bowl was played in February; all subsequent Super Bowls (excluding Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003) after that have been played in February.”
The games from 2004 to 2021 were played on the first Sunday in February, after which the NFL expanded its season from 16 to 17 regular season games. So this year’s became the first to be played on the second Sunday of the month, which looks to be the schedule for the foreseeable future.
Nice to know, I guess. Maybe someday it’ll drift into early spring. I don’t think I’ll be watching, whatever day it is.
Strong winds last night and into the morning. Strong enough that when I got up, I noticed that our sizable trash and recycle containers were both on their sides. I’d left them upright, ready for collection, the night before. I put on my coat and went out to stand them upright. An hour later, I noticed they were on their sides again. I set them up again and then quit watching.
Strong winds ushering in subfreezing temps, I should add. But no ice on the ground. That’s about all I ask from winter.
Received the following in an email today: “The Margaritaville USA Pickleball National Championships presented by Pickleball Central is USA Pickleball’s premiere event and features about 2,500 of the nation’s best pickleball athletes, including top players Tyson McGuffin, Matt Wright, Lucy Kovalova, Anna Leigh Waters and more…
“If you are interested in attending Media Day on Wednesday, or getting in touch with us for a future story, please see below.”
I wouldn’t mind writing about pickleball, at least occasionally, though I’m afraid it isn’t on my beat. Also, I wouldn’t mind being in Indian Wells, California, site of the event, about now. I didn’t know that anyone keeps track of the nation’s best pickleball athletes, but I do now. The thought of Media Day at the pickleball championships is also intriguing. Wonder how many journalists cover pickleball, even part time?
Not too many authors have their names attached to places, but Jack London does, at least until someone points out loudly enough that he was an enthusiastic supporter of eugenics. But for now, if you cross under I-980/I-880 from downtown Oakland — part of whose underside is an informal neighborhood —
— you will arrive before long at Jack London Square, which is part of the larger Jack London District. Formerly a warehouse and port district, the rise of container vessels mostly made the area obsolete as an industrial zone. Various rehab projects began in the late 20th century, but I understand that adaptive reuse really got underway around 2000, with residential redevelopment especially pushed by former mayor Jerry Brown.
The sign on site says JACK LONDON SQ.
I understand the area was a good deal rougher when Jack London himself lived around there, but these days it’s an entertainment district, with shops, restaurants, hotels and a movie theater, as well as a marina where you can catch a ferry to San Francisco.
There’s also London in bronze by Cedric Wentworth, a Bay Area artist.
Not far away is a non-bronze, “Golden Stomper,” by one Jeff Meadows. It’s an Oakland A’s thing, and I can’t get that excited about it.
London lived in a cabin in the Klondike during his gold-seeking period. On the North Fork of Henderson Creek, to be more specific. Much later (1968) half of the cabin was brought to Oakland and a replica created using those and newer materials at the behest of a wealthy Jack London enthusiast. The other half went to Dawson City, where another replica was created. So now there are two London cabins, one much easier to reach than the other.
And what would a Jack London cabin be without a nearby bronze of White Fang?
Or maybe that’s supposed to be the dog in The Call of the Wild. No sign is attached to say which. I couldn’t hazard a guess, since I never did get around to reading either of those books, though I did read the Classics Illustrated version of The Call of the Wild.
The town of Green Bay wasn’t our primary destination over Labor Day weekend, but when I stay somewhere, I like to look around if I can. Never know what you’ll see, such as a bit of history of the Green Bay Packers.
Moreover, the sign said there’s a Packers Heritage Trail. A little further investigation reveals information posted by the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay.
“The Packers Heritage Trail consists of 22 commemorative bronze plaques. The trailhead is located at the front entrance of the Neville Public Museum. On the journey, you can see Curly Lambeau’s childhood home, as well as the birthplace of the Packers. Visit the train depot that sent off the team for road games. Stop at City Stadium, where the Packers played home games from 1925 to 1956. You will also see the hotel that Vince Lombardi held his first press conference as Head Coach, and the church where he attended daily mass.”
By golly, that’s quite a trail. The plaque pictured above is on the grounds of the Brown County Courthouse, itself a sight to see.
A Charles E. Bell design. He did other courthouses around the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the Montana and South Dakota state capitols. This courthouse dates from 1910, and with its Beaux Arts-ness, reminded me of the Palacio de Belles Artes in Mexico City.
Also on the courthouse grounds is “The Spirit of the Northwest,” by Sidney Bedore and dedicated in June 1931. Looks good for being out in the Wisconsin elements for 90 years; maybe it’s been restored at some point.
The trio are an unnamed Fox Indian, Jesuit missionary Claude Allouez, who arrived in the area in 1669, and Nicholas Perrot, an explorer who arrived about 1664 and claimed the lands around the bay for the King of France.
One more: an unusually modest memorial to the Civil War veterans of Brown County. Late, too — erected in 1934 by the Woman’s Relief Corps No. 91 of the GAR.
A few blocks away from the courthouse is St. Francis Xavier Cathedral, the cathedral church of the Diocese of Green Bay, completed in 1881.
“The original cost of $35,000 was contributed by the immigrant population of the area, the Bavarian Mission Society in Germany, including a donation from King Ludwig I and friends of Bishop Francis Xavier Krautbauer, the second Bishop of the Diocese of Green Bay,” the cathedral web site says. “The architecture is Romanesque in form and was modeled on the Ludwigkirche in Munich, Germany, where then Msgr. Krautbauer was pastor before immigrating to the United States.
“Bishop Krautbauer is interred under a granite slab in the floor at the Bishop Wycislo entrance. A 40-by-25-foot mural entitled ‘The Crucifixion’ is painted on the rear wall of the sanctuary. It was painted in 1883 by Johann Schmitt, a German immigrant.”
The week after I returned from Dallas was second-dose vaccination week for all of us in our house. When I set things up in late March, the only first-shot appointments were at far-flung pharmacies in northern Illinois, meaning the boosters would be at the same places. By the time I got back, I had the sense that I could have rejiggered things to get shots closer to home. But I didn’t. I still wanted to go to those places.
Such as Freeport, Illinois, the only town of any size between Rockford and Galena, and actually much bigger than the latter (23,700 vs. 3,100). When driving into Freeport, I saw a sign advertising a Wrigley Field replica, or miniature, or something. It wasn’t hard to find after our vaccination was done.
Little Cubs Field, it’s called, which is used for Little League, T-ball and other events, and completed in 2008 by serious Cubs fans.
The bicycle in that picture belonged to one of about a half-dozen boys, all maybe about 10 years old, who were hanging out at Little Cubs Field when I arrived and started taking pictures.
“Are you a tourist?” one of them asked me.
“Yes, I’m just passing through,” I said.
“They always take pictures,” another of the boys said to yet another, not me. The first boy then asked where I was from, and I simplified matters by telling him Chicago. I got the sense that he felt that was quite a distant location. A reasonable thing to think at 10.
Off they went, and I took some more pictures.
A short drive away, in Freeport’s small downtown, is its Lincoln-Douglas memorial. I couldn’t very well pass that up.
Every place they had a debate has a memorial now. This was the first of the statues to memorialize one of the events, unveiled in 1992, but hardly the last. Chicago sculptor Lily Tolpo (d. 2016) did the bronzes. Both she and her husband Carl did Lincolns.
The memorial also featured a plaque on a rock.
Not just any plaque, but one dedicated by TR in 1903. A president, I believe, who understood the gravitas of the office he held. Probably felt it in his bones. Not all of his successors have.
We were about to leave, but couldn’t help noticing an ice cream shop next door to the memorial.
The Union Dairy Farms, founded in 1914 and serving ice cream since 1934. We couldn’t pass that up, either, figuring it had to be good. Was it ever.
Back in 2004, I met Bob the crematorium operator by chance, and he showed me part of the facility he ran. The interior of this building.That’s the crematorium and columbarium at Bohemian National Cemetery on the Northwest Side of Chicago, one of the resplendent cemeteries in the city. Bob wasn’t around when I returned for a visit on Sunday, September 13, and the building was closed.
As usual even at a beautiful cemetery, few other living people were around. But it was sunny and warm, and I had a good look.
Since the last time I visited, something unique (probably) in any cemetery has been added: Beyond the Vines.
“The 24-foot-long brick monument offering peace to the ashes of Cubs fans is called ‘Beyond the Vines.’ It sits in perpetual sunshine at Bohemian National Cemetery,” reported the Chicago Tribune in 2009, when the cemetery erected the structure.
The front was was in shadow when I saw it. Still, the purpose of the columbarium is clear. There are still spaces for anyone who cares for one. This marker for this fellow, name partly obscured, tells a sad story of early death but also the endless optimism of a Cubs fan. Bohemian National, founded in the late 19th century by the Czech immigrant community in Chicago, has a wide selection of funerary art.
A pharmacist’s stone? Looks like a mortar and pestle.
Civil War and World War(s) veterans are honored with memorials, as you’d expect, but the place also spares a thought for veterans of the war with Spain, erected in 1926. The plaque is in English and Czech. Deep in the cemetery is Anton Cermak’s mausoleum, but I didn’t see it. A memorial I did see is to the victims of the Eastland disaster. “The site was chosen because the cemetery on Chicago’s Northwest Side holds the largest number of victims from the disaster — 134,” the Trib says, reporting on the dedication of the memorial in 2015, for the 100th anniversary of the disaster.
